[time-nuts] OOPS on my wwv legal post

[wb6bnq]

Hi John,

While, tonight, I cannot cite chapter and verse without a lot of 
research, I notice you are at a premiere university and certainly have 
even greater resources than I to obtain chapter and verse.  However, I 
can give you the historical basis for your research.

Going back in time the most sought after process was a means to navigate 
ocean going ships more accurately.  The answer to this was being able to 
accurately know the time in a stable and precise way.  Historically read 
the following :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Harrison
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer
https://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/longitude-found-john-harrison


Because the primary method of transportation, in those days, was by sea, 
The united States put a lot of effort in to it's Naval Forces for 
protection on the high seas as well as defense.  The first true 
observatory was the United States Naval Observatory (USNO) whose purpose 
was to maintain the precise time for navigators, among other things.  
While the USNO web page has nothing with regard to their history they do 
state what they are responsible for on the following page :

https://www.usno.navy.mil/USNO/time        See Master clock and GPS 
links on that page.

At a later point in time was the creation of NBS (National Bureau of 
Standards) which is now called NIST (National Institute of Science and 
Technology).  The original name [ NBS ] was really more descriptive of 
what they did up to about 1970.  After that it morphed into much more 
silliness, but that is for another time (no pun intended).  Their 
primary mission is all the standards other than time and GPS.  Of course 
in order to have an accurate time piece you need very stable and 
accurate frequency generation.  So NIST works on stable and accurate 
frequency part, but not time as such.

I hope this gets you started,

Bill....WB6BNQ


John Hawkinson wrote:

>Continuing reference to what is "legal" or "the law" is very confusing to me because no one has cited any statues, regulations, or case law.
>
>What's the basis for these claims about legal requirement? Can we please cite chapter and verse? Without it, it's hard to distinguish rumor and anecdote from fact, or refute anything.
>
>Thanks.
>
>--jhawk at mit.edu
>  John Hawkinson
>
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